Three months. It's a new personal best for procrastination, it is also how long it’s been since I’ve posted here and/or written about books. I have, of course, been reading but I haven't been writing about reading. And really, what’s the point of reading if you don’t think about what you’re reading? And I can’t truly think about the text unless I’m writing about it. So thus, mini-reviews of all full-length books I've read in the last three months. I promised myself I would do this and by gum! I shall!
1. The Real Cool Killers, Chester Himes
This was the second book in the Harlem Cycle (A Rage in Harlem being the first). This was a fun read. Sexy, dirty, angry, fun. It was not challenging. It didn’t blow my mind or titilate me the way A Rage in Harlem did. Disappointing.
2. The Crazy Kill, Chester Himes
Implausible, silly, and irritating. It’s like a bad riddle you don’t even care about solving. There’s a reason this was the last book of the series that I bothered to read.
3. My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: 40 New Fairy Tales, Kate Bernheimer, ed.
It’s a book dedicated to the late, great Angela Carter. Let me say that again: it's dedicated to ANGELA MOTHERFUCKING CARTER. What’s not to love? The woman has been my literary fairy godmother since I stumbled onto The Bloody Chamber. Any book dedicated to her is alright by me. But unfortunately, that’s what this one was... just alright. Some of the stories were exceptional, others were duds, causing the collection to average out to, well, average. Although, I believe Ms. Carter would have approved of even the mediocre attempts at creating/recreating fairy tales. It’s a genre that, sadly, seems to be gasping its last breath. The world is poorer for that; we need more magic.
4. Emotional Intensity in Gifted Children, Christine Fonesca
Why? Because Zola. My seven year old daughter is a 10 all the time. Whatever the emotion is (happiness, sadness, boredom, anger, excitement) it’s always a 10. Zola, do you want to go skydiving? OF COURSE! Zola, do you want to eat octopus and eel? ABSOLUTELY! Zola, how do you feel about beets? I HATE THEM, THEY’RE RUINING MY LIFE! It’s fun and fabulous and exhausting and horrific.
This book provided some help, mainly in the form of “yeah, unfortunately for you, your kid is totally normal. You didn’t honestly think ‘genius’ wouldn’t come with a hefty price tag, did you?” Every parent of a gifted child is probably going through the same thing I’m going through and there is a small measure of comfort in that. If nothing else, it forced me to stop trying to pathologize my daughter’s normal (for her) behavior. It also gave me ideas and resources to advocate for her education. But that's a whole other post...
Bottom line: I’m glad I read this. If anyone has a gifted child, I will recommend it to them. It wasn’t exactly life-changing but it was definitely helpful.
5. Stupid Children, Lenore Zion
Side note: by some fabulous coincidence I found myself reading Stupid Children and the previous book on gifted children at the same time.
Zion's memoir-ish novel is about a girl growing up in a cult foster home after her father tries to kill himself. Very well written, compelling, great characters, sharp prose. Definitely one of the better books I’ve read lately. And I read it old-school: paper pages, spine, cover, the whole thing. I bow to the gods of technology most of the time but it felt good to read something tangible. The tablet is so... sterile.
I finished Stupid Children and immediately ordered her collection of short stories (My Dead Pets Are Interesting).
6. Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, Lawrence Wright
This was recommended to me by my boss who knows I’m obsessed with cults. It’s a tell-some (as opposed to a tell-all) nonfiction book about Scientology. But it morphs about half-way through into a weird biography of Tom Cruise’s time in the church. There seemed to be far more “story” there than what was printed, like the author left out things because he didn’t want to get sued by the infamously litigation-happy church.
However, it gave a bit of historical context for the rise of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard. I learned quite a bit about the founding of the church and their cosmology.
But the best part of the book was by far the most absurd line I’ve read in a very long time. It was said as a threat to misbehaving Scientology members and attests to the absurdity of the intersection of celebrity and religion. “Don’t make me get Tom Cruise to come in here and punch you in the face.” It puts a smile on my face every damn time.
7. Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi
Ugh. This took forever to finish. Yes, it’s a classic. Yes, it’s "one of the greatest true-crime tomes every written." But, as I’ve stated before in my complaint of the true crime genre, the middle of the book gets bogged down in the minutiae of court proceedings and police procedures. It was mind-numbing. I wanted Capote. I wanted In Cold Blood. I wanted prose and I got legalese! I wanted... something better than what I got.
That said: yes, it’s a great example of the true crime genre and much better written than almost every true crime book ever written. Sadly.
There needs to be a movement to get true crime back into the respected nonfiction world. Like a nonfiction version of what's happening with sci-fi in capital-L Literature right now. But I digress.
8. Revenge, Yoko Ogawa
A gem! A little Japanese creep-fest gem of a book. I loved it! It weirded me out and made me squidgy. Yes, squidgy. It made me have a feeling that has no translation in any language because it’s completely visceral. Read it. It’s uniquely entertaining. Get squidgy with me.
9. Outlining Your Novel, K.M. Weiland
Like most books about writing, this was 80% pep-talk, 10% literary masturbation, and 10% instruction manual. When you're looking for instruction manual, this can be frustrating. However, Wieland did present a great idea to help explore where you want your story to go: The What If List. You sit down and list literally every question that pops into your head about your plot. Everything. Even the most absurd ridiculous things. When I tried it with a few story ideas it gave new directions for all of them.
It also made me realize that I don’t think I’ll ever be the compulsively organized writer that gets everything done on a tight timeline and cranks out a finished book every 18 months. I also don’t think I’ll ever be a chaotic mess who never finishes anything. And I’m okay with that.
10. 1Q84, Haruki Murakami
Really big. Really good.
I’m not saying more because you should just read it. Seriously. Go buy it and read it. It's a substantial time commitment but it’s worth it. All the reviews that say it’s crap or over-rated or not Murakami’s best? All those people are fucking morons. True, it’s not his best, but his worst is still better than 90% of what’s out there so ignore the critics and go read some fucking Murakami already. Do it.
11. Reconstructing Amelia, Kimberly McCreight
I’m fascinated with mean girls. I have been the victim of mean girls and I was a mean girl. Fuck, I’m still kind of mean. But my meanness has been honed into a sharpened spear that is only aimed at deserving victims. I believe there is no crueler creature on earth than the 14 year old girl. Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot... put any of them up against a couple of junior high girls and they'd crumble.
However, McCreight's offering in the Mean Girl genre was okay. It was nonlinear (yay!) and had lots of fun epistilary sections (yay!) but the ending fell flat (no pun intended... Amelia falls off a building at the beginning of the book) and made the whole book not really about mean girls at all but about lying. Although one could argue that lying is a quintessential part of the mean girl experience. It just didn't seem true.
This was one of those “I must finish this tonight” kind of novels that you seem to really love while you’re reading it but as soon as you step away from it, you realize “yeah, it was okay, but I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else.”
Side note: the best of the mean girl genre so far is Megan Abbot's Dare Me. It's a delightfully wicked book!
12. The Interestings, Meg Wolitzer
Alternative Titles Include:
The Irritatings,
The Snarky Little Bastards Behaving Badly,
The Pretentious-es...es,
The Overly Self-Aware Overly Ironic Characters That The Reader Will End Up Hating,
The Spoiled Pseudo-Intellectual Rich Kids of New York City Written By A Spoiled Pseudo-Intellectual Rich Kid of New York City,
The Every Theme Ever In a Book In Forever With The Hope That Every Modern Lit Prof Everywhere Will Make Their Students Buy It Just To Write Crappy Theme Papers,
The Why Do I Keep Reading These Overly Hyped Mainstream Bullshit Fests They’re Always Woefully Disappointing! Even The Fucking Synopsis Irritated Me!
13. Faces of Fear, John Saul
A confession: John Saul is my literary rinse-and-spit. He’s my palate cleanser, my dry crappy cracker between wine tastings, my reset button, the Ctrl-Alt-Delete of my reader brain. It’s shameful and ugly but it’s the truth. I make no excuses. I read John Saul.
I’m Dawnelle and I’m a Saul-aholic. Hi Dawnelle.
Here’s everything you need to know about this book: Beverly Hills, plastic surgery, Frankenstein, creepy step-dad, gay dads, clueless mom, mean girls (yay!), butchering serial killer, lots of misleading details and plot holes. Also it follows the EXACT formula for every single one of his previous 35 novels... most of which I’ve read.
Until next time, Mr. Saul, thank you. My brain has been scrubbed clean and refreshed. On to better texts!
And...
14. Endless Love, Scott Spencer
[This book was so unbelievably bad that I'm saving a full review for a different post which I have titled, in my head, "In Defense of Bad Writing."] It makes John Saul look like Dostoyevsky.
